Raikkonen: Drain cover incident made F1 look like "amateurs"

The Alfa Romeo driver thinks the FIA should shoulder the blame for what happened, as he said the lost track time meant that everyone's day was "destroyed".

Russell struck a loose drain cover during the opening free practice, with the impact badly damaging his car and forcing Williams to build him a new chassis for Saturday.

The FIA later explained that the drain had come loose because of a broken underside mounting.

With a need for track officials to inspect all the drains around the circuit to ensure that there would be no repeat issue elsewhere, the first practice session had to be abandoned.

Raikkonen was left far from impressed about the events, which he thinks could have been prevented if checks had been thorough enough.

"Obviously it was far from ideal for everybody and we looked like amateurs here today," said Raikkonen. "It should not be like this. It's up to FIA to make sure that track is like it's supposed to be.

"It seems to be that every year some drainage hole comes loose or something slides up. That was far from ideal today.

"It's up to them to check and tell the people here. It is their responsibility to have the track as it is expected to be. Luckily nobody get hurt, but it obviously destroyed everybody's day. Also for the people who came to watch here it is far from ideal."

When asked if it was a matter that would be brought up in Friday night's drivers' briefing, Raikkonen said: "It's not the first time. Hopefully it's the last time."

With drivers effectively only having one session to get all their Friday running done, Raikkonen said that it was hard to draw conclusions from the timesheets.

"It was a confusing day," he said. "Too bad. I think [key is] to make the tyres work, and then we'll see where we end up."